Phase II Metabolites of Drugs in Hair: A Potential Solution for Environmental Contamination, 2020-2022 (ICPSR 39212)
Version Date: Dec 2, 2025 View help for published
Principal Investigator(s): View help for Principal Investigator(s)
Megan Grabenauer, RTI International
https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR39212.v1
Version V1
Summary View help for Summary
Although drugs and some metabolites can be measured reliably in hair, it can be difficult if not impossible to differentiate drugs deposited in hair due to actual use of the parent drug from a drug that is present due to external contamination. The objective of this project was to look for unique metabolites in hair that are indicators of consumption in addition to, or in place of, the parent drugs. The research team conducted exploratory research to look for the presence of these metabolites in hair from known drug users using a variety of sample preparation and liquid chromatography - mass spectrometry (LC-MS) detection techniques. Data acquisition included targeted LC-MS/MS acquisition methods commonly employed in metabolite identification applications, as well as full scan high resolution MS data acquisition and comparative analyses using a metabolomics approach.
Research questions for this study were:
- Can phase II metabolites (i.e., conjugated metabolites) serve as an alternative to current decontamination procedures for drug testing in hair?
- Can phase II metabolites be inadvertently produced during sample analysis?
- Are concentrations of phase II metabolites high enough for quantification?
This collection contains 6 Excel files and 1 PDF file. Excel data files contain lists of integrated peaks from semi-targeted and non-targeted data acquisition for the drugs of interest tested in this study (cocaine, methamphetamines, opioids, oxycodone). The PDF file contains information on the sample list, data acquisition, and peak integration parameters.
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Study Purpose View help for Study Purpose
The purpose of the study was to look for unique metabolites in hair samples that would indicate whether actual drug use occurred or if drugs are present due to external contamination.
Study Design View help for Study Design
Hair specimens were selected from RTI's hair inventory, including blank drug-free hair and hair from people known to have used drugs that had high concentrations of the drugs of interest. Forty-three specimens were from people known to have used drugs. Two methods were developed to extract analytes of interest (opioids, methamphetamines, cocaine, oxycodone) from hair, one using acidic methanol and one using M3 reagant from Comedical. Each was followed by a solid phase extraction (SPE) clean-up prior to injection into the mass spectrometry (LC-MS) system. For LC-MS/MS, the extraction with the highest recovery for each drug category was used. For QTOF, the M3 extraction method was used for all drug categories. QTOF data acquisition, processing, and analysis were done using Waters Connect version 1.9.13.
Please refer to the NIJ Final Report under Related Publications for more details on data analysis procedures.
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Universe View help for Universe
Hair samples from RTI's inventory
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Notes
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This dataset is maintained and distributed by the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data (NACJD), the criminal justice archive within ICPSR. NACJD is primarily sponsored by three agencies within the U.S. Department of Justice: the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the National Institute of Justice, and the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.